Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 04-13 PreMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting April 13, 2004 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 4:30 P.M. on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Bill Nary, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Staff Present: Bill Nichols, Anna Powell, Bill Musser, Craig Hood, Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Bill Nary X Keith Bird X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Nary: It’s been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. 3. Work Session / Presentation with Dr. Robert Freilich of ACHD: Nary: Mr. Price, welcome. Price: Thank you. Steve Price, general counsel for the Ada County Highway District. I have had the pleasure of, I think, introducing Dr. Freilich before to some of the members of your City Council and the Mayor. I will just kind of do a quick snapshot of how we came on to Dr. Freilich. Just so you understand the context in which we retained him and then how and why we are here tonight. When I got on board with ACHD and with Bruce (inaudible) we looked at our policy manual and determined that over the years it’s been an accumulation of a bunch of ideas and there is a lot of internal inconsistency and it needed to be reworked. So, the director has requested the senior management team to explore that and so we went looking for a consultant. At the same time, there was the issuance of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee, which was a product of a petition for dissolution and there were proceedings that followed. The Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee made specific recommendations for improvement to the Ada County Highway District. From that one of the issues that was raised has been a nagging issue with the Highway District at least from a practical as well as perception standpoint. This is the disconnect between land use and transportation, not only planning but implementation. So, we went out and were looking for a solution. I had the pleasure of going to some conferences in which Dr. Freilich was there and attended. It really became clear to me that he was or had the ability to help us in both regards in terms of helping us reshape our policy manual, which is really our implementation tool for transportation as well as looking at a format or a structure to bridge the disconnect between land use and transportation. So, we’ve retained him to do that and we have a two phase of consulting agreement with him. One is obviously the policy manual changes and phase two is to develop a preliminary structure or framework for how the six cities and the county and the Ada County Highway District could develop a coordinated land use and transportation growth management plan. Just to explore the idea. Not that we were going to do it. Not that there is any specific direction. It was simply just to go and explore the interest level with the different land use agencies, as well as ITD, as well as COMPASS and the like. We have been doing that since about – you know, steady since November. We have received a lot of interest. There has been a lot of positive feedback. Very little negative feedback. The only time we have really had any negative feedback is really more with regard to confusion about the roles of different entities. I think that as we get into the framework and the structure we will have to define those areas. Currently, right now, we are right on the edge of coming out with a white paper, which is the completion of phase two of Dr. Freilich’s work, which will make specific recommendations on how the land use agencies and the Transportation, ACHD and the County could work together in moving forward and revising the implementation tools towards better bridging together the growth management. At least having some coordinated effort in terms of growth management. So, we will be coming out with that report shortly. During the past four months, the City of Meridian and their staff have been actually the greatest participants in presentations by Dr. Freilich. The Mayor has been very supportive of that and we do appreciate at least the excitement and interest level. One of the visits the Mayor asked Dr. Freilich to look at, just conceptually the north Meridian area. In doing that, there are some concerns about how did we get there? How did north Meridian occur? What’s happened since then? So, we have asked Dr. Freilich just to take an initial look and his presentation tonight will be to get your feedback in the north Meridian area as well as to make comments. From his expertise’s he has a doctrine in law as well as a doctrine in planning. His background is extensive. I don’t know if I need to really go into it, but he does – he is a partner in one of the national leading firms in land use planning. He is also head of the urban – you know, he has been past Chair of the Urban Lawyer. He has been very involved with the American Planning Association. He goes throughout the country and has represented over 200 communities in developing these kinds of plans. So, with that kind of background I will introduce and welcome Dr. Freilich. Freilich: Thank you very much, Steve. It’s a pleasure to be here. Such nice weather. In fact, I am saying, why can’t we get some of that? I can understand why you are growing. I have been very impressed with this area, the region and I am very impressed with the people that I meet. The willingness to look at things in an open way. I can just tell you just a little bit about the progress we are making. We are looking at the phase two part, which is the developing of a cities/county plan. Basically, a city’s/county guide plan that would define where growth would basically take place and what the growth areas would be. Eliminate the need to worry about rapid annexation because it would create standards in growth or impact areas that essentially would have to meet city standards in order to – for development to occur. There would not be a debility of other cities to cross over to an (inaudible) and to establish growth boundaries and lines the cities would agree with one another and hopefully the county would also join in, although it’s not 100 percent critical that they do, but in any event the purpose, certainly from ACHD’s point is that they have the responsibility of approving subdivisions for transportation capacity and very difficult for them to do it out on a limb when the city’s comprehensive plans don’t measure you know what exactly should transportation capacity be. What is concurrency? How that should be measured? What are the levels of service and how that would be carried through by the cities themselves, you know, in implementing the plans to give the support to ACHD to be able to enforce transportation concurrency. So, the theory is to develop this guide plan and then basically to work with each city to import an element, an actual growth management element into the comprehensive plans and to develop adequate public facilities, ordinances, various other development agreement tools; various implementing tools into the City’s own ordinances. So, the idea being to actually move from an agreed upon structure where the cities can come together and attempt to agree upon a methodology for growing around corridors and centers and growth areas to prioritize capital improvements to where you know (inaudible). To make sure you have fully funded capital improvement programs. To understand the relationship of development to new growth related facilities. The timing and phasing to a long-range capital improvement program. The ability for the county, for example, to preserve agricultural and rural lands so they prevent premature subdivision that basically extends out transportation capacity. One of the things that ACHD is currently facing is as each year adds 50 miles onto the highway system; the cost of operation and maintenance of that system keeps reducing the available funds for capital improvement. So, everybody has a stake in really developing this. We need COMPASS’ guidance. They are developing a long range transportation plan, but they are doing a lot of modeling, they are going to be looking at basic new techniques for (inaudible) incentives, which would be helpful in terms of working with the cities to develop plans. So, basically, we think that there is a real excitement about developing this. The (inaudible-----------). I took a look at the north Meridian plan. I think fundamentally, I think north Meridian plan develop a series of priorities. Those priorities were orderly and serviceable growth. The second was public/private partnerships. The third one was infrastructure concurrency or adequate public facilities available at time of development and the fourth one was community character. It defined the boundaries of the area. So, I ask myself – went on the web and I looked at things and I said number one where are the measuring rods? In other words, how do you know whether that plan is successful or not? I looked through the plan to determine where were the measurements and it was how do we know the successes? We identified a series of projects, are they fully funded? Are we getting the infrastructure that was called for? The park sites, the fire facilities, the various roadway dedications and other types of things. So, just asking questions because obviously I am not going to go in and critique it and tell you that you have done right or done wrong. But, I am asking questions that I think a lot of you can you know, engage in a discussion about how I work with cities and I worked with now actually over 250 cities and counties, probably from San Diego to Seattle to Miami to Minneapolis to Lexington. Cities your size, smaller, larger, counties and growth areas. I always also ask where are the implementation tools? Where is your adequate public facilities ordinance that actually would implement the goals of the plan? Where are the separate zones for the impact fees that the study called for? Where was the prioritized CIP that the study called for? Where are the development agreement ordinances and standards to go into place to deal with the assurance that developers will fully fund these facilities within a reasonable period of time? Same time to also grant vesting to developers in existing standards and so forth. So, what I think is important is I can’t figure out what happened to the plan. I can see where the development has gone. I have maps and I have current inputs and I can see subdivision after subdivision coming into the north Meridian area. So, my fundamental questions were Chinden was supposed to be an ITD transportation corridor route that was going to develop mixed-used overlay corridor districts with transportation corridor centers you talked about one eighth of a mile, I would have looked a little wider maybe a ¼ of a mile. The idea of (inaudible) economic development through the ability to pull assembled land and to mixed-uses offices, research, technology and other types of things with the city (inaudible) infrastructure, ACHD putting in highway infrastructure and basically long-term leasing it out to development, which is the major mutual for attracting economic development. So, my fundamental take is I look at all these subdivisions, but that doesn’t basically say to me that you can’t actually go forward and now implement the plan for pieces that need to be implemented. Frankly, the fact that development comes in doesn’t mean that concurrency cannot be required a building permit for example. So, you get subdivision approvals. We can still require concurrency for issuance of building permits. You can still require impact fees for parks and fire and emergency services and police facilities as well as the sewer and water. You can require development agreements to go into place. You can begin to put into place these overlay districts and basically say that the development has to go along with these prosthesis in terms of getting the mix, getting signs of economic development, looking at a lot of these things that go into place. You can look to fully funding your CIP and prioritizing your CIP, so that as these units come on board, even though some of them have been approved through subdivision plats. So, I think that there is a lot of room for carrying out still the implementation tools of the plan. I think one of the major problems that a lot of cities have – and it takes a certain amount of long-term experience to understand that plans really need to be fundamentally accompanied by the implementing ordinances at the time of planned adoption. The idea that you are going to do it sometime into the future – you are going to develop these prosthesis and so forth and so on after a major planning effort undergoes is in many cases very difficult for a rapid growth community. Your staff is constantly struggling with the size of your staff with developmental approvals because you are a very rapidly growing city. They are overwhelmed with reviewing development applications, development approvals, zoning, subdivision applications and so forth. Developing the actual tools of a prioritized CIP, a fully funded program development agreements’ ordinances, adequate public facilities’ ordinances and zoned impact fees. Because, you see, one of the things that’s really critical is you really want to make sure that the existing community is not subsidizing the growth in the new growth areas. That in fact, the actual costs of all these different facilities are born by new growth because if they are born by the general fund it’s a constant exporting of capital all the time out to the growth areas and the deficiencies that exist in the existing built up areas will not necessarily be addressed over the lifetime of your planning. These are just some of the suggestions that, I think are important. I have been up and down a number of your corridors here and frankly, even some of these existing corridors, the stripped out corridors, I think can be in many respects resurrected. I think you can create transportation development districts around these corridors. You can require landscaping, access control. You can basically begin to do a lot of things even though development is already in. These are what we call public nuisance standards; to reduce traffic and safety problems that exist on corridors. You can encourage more rear parking. You can basically beautify up a number of these corridors, so you can create some housing mix into these corridors instead of just strip commercial. So, I think, that this corridor overlay concept is a very good one. I think it really needs to be more fully flushed out. I think the corridor centers should be identified and I think you should be basically prioritizing your capital improvement funding into these corridors because with this I think you can leverage a lot of economic development. Really hire paying jobs and better economic development into these corridor centers that they are significant. You come off of the freeway, you know, you see automobile lots, you see amusement facilities, you see motels and so forth and so on. You need to start to address how that major-- you know Meridian intersection on I 84 can really be developed with offices, with housing, with integrated commercial walk-able facilities, other types of things that will really begin to create a very viable, upscale, economic development center. I think it can be done. I think you are sitting like Red Barber the old sports broadcaster say, you know, you are sitting in the cat-bird seat. You have got an area that is growing rapidly. You are in the heart or really the center of the whole Valley. You have the opportunity because of access from all points of the Valley. You have got great climate. You have got great views of the mountains and so forth and so on. You have got all the things in place for the natural (inaudible) of the beauty, but you just need some concentrated effort on implementation and I think it can be done. So these are just what I would point out to you. I think it’s important to develop Chinden Boulevard; to work with the State and COMPASS and you know to develop a plan as to how you are going to build corridor centers along Chinden Boulevard. I think it’s important to ask developers as to whether or not they should be timing and phasing of some of these subdivisions that have been approved because of the capacity. I just spoke to someone on the School District Board and they said that their biggest problem is not necessarily getting schools’ facilities, the biggest problem is that the growth is overwhelming their ability to staff those facilities to have the operational funds to actually those schools. Before they build those schools they actually have to be able to operate, maintain and fund them – you know, put the teachers in, get the computers and equipment and get the things necessary to make sure that those schools are operated. If you did an actual fiscal impact analysis of the development that’s coming in, I think you would find that your housing – your residential housing is probably paying about 60 percent of the actual costs of building school facilities, operating and maintaining them through taxes. Where are those additional funds for the school district going to come from? This is really, I think, you need to develop an ongoing dialogue for the (inaudible) Meridian area with the school district to really find out what is their cap improvement program? How fast can that program come on board? What revenues do they see from individual, residential housing and subdivisions? And where are the short falls? What phasing of development, you know, becomes a meaningful tool that would assist and help them? Because the value of your property is going to go up if the school district can do a job that actually will provide high quality education. It would also attract more economic development to the community if the schools are really operational. I think cooperating with ACHD in terms of creating some corridor centers and you know dealing with some of these issues, I think, can be very fruitful. So, these are just some observations. I think that a lot of communities essentially – it takes a while to really catch up to what a rapid rate of growth – actually what the impacts of a rapid rate of growth are. Sometimes it just takes a (inaudible) change to really be able to measure and to understand it. I think the fundamental thing that I need to say is you need to basically tell me what did happen to the plan and how satisfied are you that the plan that emerged, including the foundation report and so forth whether you think there is more work to be done and whether there needs to be a further follow up on that. I think, you know, the community a lot better than I do. I did examine things. I went into some great depth into looking at these things; nobody paid me to do that because the Mayor asked me to take a look at it. I think it’s important just to give you an outsider’s observation. I guess I’ll stop now and be happy to get into any questions and so forth. Powell: Dr. Freilich, I will answer the question of what happened to the plan. The Mayor was giving me the evil look over here. The plan came before the Planning and Zoning Commission, I think my second day at work. Took a quick look at it and well before that they had pulled out section by section saying no don’t adopt that portion. There was problems with it and they didn’t want to fix it, so they said no we just won’t do that portion of it and it had basically just come down to the land use portions. I took one look at it and it was inconsistent with our current comprehensive plan and they had never addressed how that would be handled. I basically encouraged them to withdrawal because it was not consistent with the current comprehensive plan and I didn’t see anyway that we could have implemented it. So, I did ask them to withdraw. At that point, they had invested quite a bit of time and money and did not clearly want to invest any more, so they were kind of happy to withdraw. We did promise to try and resurrect it within six months. It’s been a year. We have been working on it, albeit, slowly because we are overwhelmed by development applications. We are trying to revise portions of it. I think that the portions we are looking at now are the idea of some of these transportation corridors trying to get some density in those corridors to facilitate, transit and to get more mixed-use and to kind of increase the awareness of what mixed-use can mean. We struggle with that on day-to-day bases because it’s not what they are used to doing around here. So, that’s kind of where we are. Freilich: Well, you know, I think it’s just interesting – I appreciate those comments. In my sense, one of the things when I took a look at the plan, but I didn’t have the time to do you know an analysis of how you would adopt (inaudible). You know, where it would fit in, etcetera. But, you know one of the things I would say is that you basically need a growth management element to your comprehensive plan. I mean, you don’t need to revise the plan. A lot of the things that are in the comprehensive plan make sense. I mean, a lot of the lane uses do not necessarily need to be revisited. You need some overlay districts and some things, I agree with you. But, I think you really need to know how do we really basically implement what we have got? So that we don’t have to every two weeks with rezoning and subdivision plats, you know, revisit the same issues over and over and over again. Are you going to put a signalization at this intersection? Are you going to do this, you know, who is going to do that? What improvements, what makes sense? I think you really should focus some time on that. I think it could be accomplished fairly quickly. That’s one of the things actually that the City’s, County plan will be doing fundamentally is going back to each city and working out the – you know a growth management implementation element and the necessary ordinances to accomplish that. But, you know that might be a couple of years or something like that. I think you could really benefit a great deal from developing an implementation effort in conjunction with your planning staff and with the Council because I think you will reap tens of millions of dollars of benefits from just doing that. It’s like maybe the thing would cost you a half of an intersection culvert, okay in terms of putting that in, but the net benefit to you would be enormous. So, that’s one question that I asked; and then how about the ordinances themselves, you know, the developing the overlay ordinances, developing the impact fees and the zone ordinances, the development agreement ordinances or is that in the same situation? Powell: Well, there were some references to changes to the zoning ordinance and the traditional neighborhood ordinance and we are working on a rewrite. We are kind of at the beta group test at this point for a new zoning ordinance that’s just clearer and it does have some of those traditional neighborhood elements in it. So, that was taken on. We haven’t done some of the more specific – like concurrency ordinance or any of those and we are looking for more information and guidance from you and ACHD and as the department directors have decided to move forward with proposing a capital improvement plan – a five year capital improvement plan, so we are hoping to do that. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Dr. Freilich, I appreciate a number of the things that you have suggested and pointed out. I think in the process of developing any kind of plan updating your comprehensive plan, doing a north Meridian plan. It’s such tremendous work for a small staff that it’s hard to work on the plan and do the ordinances at the same time. That’s probably our greatest challenge. It took us four years to update our comprehensive plan and we are just now getting around to some of the key ordinances to making that comprehensive plan effective. A lot of the elements that are mentioned in the north Meridian plan are not in our comprehensive plan because it was going along at the same time and staff felt as that further develops and is further defined and it takes a little bit more of a concrete shape then we can go in and amend our comprehensive plan to accept it, accept the overlay and start working on how we can implement. But your points are very well taken. I have talked with staff about getting this back on the table because I do feel it’s important. It does further define our areas of supporting the public transportation, supporting concepts of connecting our neighborhoods, connecting them with the mixed-use concepts in mind. So, those are all important. We have – one thing it did do is it brought the school district to the table. We have a better understanding of where they are going to want their schools, how many schools. However, they haven’t further elaborated on their planning as well. We have been able to further our efforts in the parks area. We do have now another substation site for our fire. It has had some benefits that are not always on paper or tangible. But, it has helped the planning process. We want to take it another step further. One of the key elements is capital improvement plan that we need to partner with ACHD on and we all realize how important our transportation system is and how we manage that. That’s a key component and certainly we still have in our development agreements we have open ended condition out there that whatever is adoptive through this north Meridian plan the subdivisions need to adhere to those and yes it’s not too late to collect on that, but every building permit that’s issued without it, I feel we lose money or we lose another participant in being part of the solution. So, that’s my sense of urgency is how we can maximize our opportunity right now in at least one of these areas that we have a partner in with ACHD and how we can find solutions in the north Meridian area and be able to implement those same theories and concepts throughout the rest of our city. Freilich: See, I actually am very – I think the north Meridian plan sets a very high standard. I think it’s good. I think your goals and objectives are very good. I think you identified many, many issues and I think you identified a lot of solutions to those issues. So, I think you are way ahead of the game to start with, since you are not starting from ground zero. Two years – that report came out in 2002, it’s now 2004 – you know, that’s two years. I think frankly, I wouldn’t berate myself. I think you are engaged in an ongoing process. I don’t think it would take much more than nine to twelve months to put into effect here a series of concurrency ordinances or adequate public facility or to address some of these issues, you know, about putting in some type of prioritize, you know capital improvement types of things and so forth. Seriously, because I go through this. I work with communities on these types of growth management tools. That’s not the same thing as saying what are the lane uses? What are the maps? What are the zones? That’s another process. In terms of getting the tools into place. In terms of saying that we want to upgrade our development agreement process, so that we have an understanding; we want to tie it to a prioritize CIP. We want to have an adequate public facility’s ordinance that defines when that adequate public facility’s have to be met. For example, a building permit and so forth. If you begin to develop those, I mean, it doesn’t take that long. These are not magical Houdini things. They need some skill and some understanding, but they can be done. They can be done before a countywide transportation guide plan and so forth goes into effect. So, working on the overlay corridors might take a little longer. I mean, you know, because you still have to identify exactly the nature, the uses and the location of where you might want to put those overlays in and how you might want to establish the underlying land uses. But, I think you can make major progress towards this. That was the point when I came here. It was indicated that you are so far behind that you can’t do it. De Weerd: But we are losing that opportunity. I think as quickly as our staff can attest this as can ACHD’s staff is we are developing very quickly at a very rapid rate and so time is of the essence. Freilich: That’s why I am saying you can do it quickly and I say quickly. I think that timeframe I gave you is fairly quick. De Weerd: Oh, I don’t. Freilich: Well, let me tell you – you may or do you know the adoption process and how long does it take to go through the Planning Commission and Boards and have public discussion, identify these issues, you know. De Weerd: (Inaudible--------). Freilich: Well, if you can move it faster great. De Weerd: Yeah well, it pale in comparison to a four-year comprehensive plan, so. Powell: President Nary. Nary: Anna. Powell: Mr. President, Dr. Freilich. Would it be possible – do you have good model examples or just good examples? We might be able to incorporate that into the draft group that we have got going now. It’s half of the north Meridian area plan folks anyway, so— Freilich: We would be happy to work with you on getting you your basic ordinances, the procedural ordinances and the other things that is necessary to carry around. It wouldn’t take that long. It’s just the question is you have got to basically be able to adapt it to your own unique situations as well. You just can’t copy somebody else’s work because you can make some pretty bad mistakes. Powell: I understand it. Price: If I may Mr. President. Nary: Certainly, go ahead. Price: I would like to respond to some of the comments made by Mayor De Weerd and that is you know we have a process between ACHD and the City of Meridian. One is obviously there is urgency and I think it’s felt by all of the agencies is that we ought to – and as we are kind of going through this process, we will be coming to you and we have said this several times that we need to get an MOU in place and we need to create a structure where we can work with you in developing a capital improvement plan. I would love to volunteer Bruce’s time, but he is very busy. But you know – I think you know Bruce’s integrity in terms of getting the job done. I think we just need to stop talking about it. We have been talking about it a long time. We need to just start doing it. I think we are prepared to do that and obviously we have Dr. Freilich to – you know is a resource to do that so I just wanted to offer that as – we need to really just get on it and create a time schedule when events are going to occur. Let’s set things where it’s going to curl over the next two to three months. Set a structure between both of the entities to kind of see where we can get with it. I think that’s the only way we are going to address some of the concerns that you have raised in the way that will get it done or it’ll – you know, those kinds of things will just linger on and it will be twelve months so I offer that up as something from ACHD – Freilich: -- on rebut I take back my nine to twelve months. Just now promised two to three months. Price: No, I just mean in terms of a structure. De Weerd: (Inaudible----) Price: Well, we aim to please at ACHD. The other point that I want to comment on is an issue that I have raised with COMPASS and that is measuring cumulative impacts. What that means to us is that as you approve a preliminary plat and you approve another preliminary plat and all of sudden you are in the same area with the same infrastructure in place, all of sudden if you aren’t measuring what you are authorized to growth, approved as growth then you don’t know when the next application comes in whether you have adequate public facilities to provide that service. In a lot of our modeling in terms of our capital improvement plan is that the demographics and the trend and the modeling that COMPASS uses doesn’t really take into account a good or what I believe to be a kind of a real time measure of the growth that is anticipated in that area so that you can react by one, having an impact fee that focuses on getting funding for projects within that area to respond to it quicker as opposed to a 20 year plan or something like that. So, we have talked with COMPASS. They have been receptive to that idea and exploring and setting up a committee to kind of talk about how we can, how COMPASS can measure in getting that number of measure in cumulative impacts, but I really think that that’s an important part and I think a lot of that – north Meridian in my mind is really the kind of area in which Kuna impacts would be a tell-tale sign of you know, is the developer number 17 when all of a sudden the level of service hits D and it doesn’t matter whether there is service, but is it number 20, 21 that you say no to? Right now, I don’t think anybody is saying no. You are just saying yeah, yeah, yeah and all of a sudden everything is just kind of – but I think we need to have that kind of framework where you have a bell ring when you kind of get that number. Freilich: Well, that’s what a good adequate public facilities ordinance would do and then let me tell you one other trap that cities fall into. Nary: Dr. Freilich, could you use the microphone just to make sure we – Freilich: Oh yes, I am sorry. The trap that cities usually fall into is you have a pipeline. You have a lot of approved subdivisions that haven’t yet built (inaudible) or that haven’t fully built out. So, what’s important is when you look at adequate public facilities you are looking at what’s on the ground right now? What’s built and using those facilities? The development application comes in and it says I am going to add 250 homes and 2,500 hundred trips, you know, a day onto that corridor and that interject. But, what you haven’t counted is all those projects that you have approved that haven’t built yet because they are vested in coming on board. So, let’s say that I have an interchange, which has 30,000 trips on it. I have 20,000 trips currently utilized. Development comes in and says I have got 10,000 trips and I am going to put in 1,000 homes, 10,000 trips. Well, that’s not good; you may have 10,000 trips out there that you have already approved. So, the key is what were those impact fees from that developer – you know, add by way of capacity – all of this goes into how you look at prioritize and problematic CIP and how you relate that to and adequate public facilities. The second major problem that cities find is you establish a series of priorities in your (inaudible-----------) planning. They may be sequentially related or contiguous. In other words, you want to develop out in contiguity and you want to move the sewer and water and the roads and fires of it together so that you have a full set of public services. Developer comes in, okay, 2 ½ miles up and says I’ll actually build this facility for you, but I want a credit against my impact fees. But the impact fees in the year 2004 are being used in your capital improvement program to build this project down here. If the development goes up there and gets a credit against (inaudible) for printing that project, you have just flipped your capital improvement program. You have just put year eight as year one and moved year one and year two and year three back. So, even the relationships of development agreements and understandings and credits and other mechanisms have to be worked out. It’s not that it’s all Einsteinie in physics or mathematics it’s just that you have to know the questions to ask and you have to understand, you know, how these ramifications play upon one another. I think you will find it very exciting, actually, to get into a growth management implementation. I think you – it will be a tremendous opportunity for this entire Council to get into that. The staff, you know, I can see (inaudible ----------) before about what their desirous of accomplishing. So, no that was my observation. I think a lot of it is there to be done. I think that planned goals and objectives are set out. I don’t think you have to reinvent the wheel in a lot of that regard. I think you understand what it is you want to do and I think you just have to get down to doing it. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess I am glad to hear what Steve suggested on the accumulative impacts. We have been asking for that from ACHD. There is a huge tie to that. It’s also an issue with the schools. We get this isolated letter that says it will add this many students to our school system, but they don’t tell us well, can you accept that, you know? Do you need it phased? Do you want us to deny it? We can’t deny because we are not the authorities for the schools without their input. Same with and I have been there at COMPASS, too, asking for those accumulative impacts because unfortunately we get traffic counts, but we don’t know what it’s added to and what it means for this one application. We do need to move beyond looking at an isolated application one at a time. Freilich: Absolutely. There is no question of the accumulative impacts are absolutely essential to understanding the nature of the problem. Now with the schools, let me just say something about adequate public facilities as long as we have about two minutes left. I know we were supposed to close at 5:30, Mr. President. There is a misconception about adequate public facility. You do not have to be the agency that delivers the service in order to adopt an adequate public facility’s ordinance. All right. You can adopt an adequate public facility’s ordinance that governs private road districts; that governs state road programming; that governs ACHD’s priorities and so on; because you are the planning agency, under state statutes you have the ability to plan and to implement that plan. Therefore, if it were the fact that you could only use adequate public facilities on your own facilities you couldn’t do it for transportation. You couldn’t do it for school systems and so on. Now the schools do not have the authority under state law to deny enrollment to those who live in the community. But what the schools need to do is they need to go more than just to tell you what a given house will produce point eight students you know per unit or something like that. They need to tell you also what is their current enrollment. What are their facilities? What is their classroom level? Is it 26 to 1 in elementary schools; or 28 to 1 in middle schools; or is it 30 to 1 in senior high schools? What are those? Where are their capacities? What are their accumulative impacts? What about all those subdivisions that have been approved and not built upon that are going to feed into their enrollment facilities? If you get them to do the actual analysis and planning of what development creates in terms of the schools and what they are funding is and what their facilities are then you can work – then you can basically incorporate that into and make the decisions yourself on school facilities – the adequacy on school facilities. You get their report, you make the decision – you are the planning agency. You are the one that is making the development approval. I want to let you know that – and also Idaho law is very broad on this subject. It’s one of the best statutes in America. I don’t know how that came about. I have still been trying to do some research as to how in the ‘90s that kind of thing – if I say too much about it the legislatures will hear about it and there will be some motion to amend it back, but basically it’s a pretty good statutory enabling act that you have. The tools I think are there. There are some, I think, some development districts and other financing and things like that that would be useful, tied to planning and so forth, but fundamentally I think you have got a good base to work on. So, anyway, that’s the story. Thank you for giving me the privilege of coming tonight. Nary: Council, do you have other questions for Dr. Freilich. Bird: I don’t, Mr. President. I just appreciate his presentation. Nary: Dr. Freilich, we all do appreciate it very much and I think the accumulative impacts is something that we have tried to address a little bit. I think we piece-meal a lot. We have a great colorful map that we look at a lot that tells us how many things that we have approved that are still pending. Freilich: (inaudible) the traffic counts. You know the accumulative house numbers. (Tape ended) Nary: (inaudible discussion). So it’s nice from your presentation to really kind of get our arms around that a little bit because you are exactly right. That is the concerns we have to address and we try to do it on the school’s traffic and we need to do it much more comprehensively, but I do appreciate your time being here and all of what you had to say. Freilich: Thank you all very much. Nary: Thank you very much. Thank you, Steve, as well for being here. Council our next item is the Mayor’s Report and I don’t know if all the folks are here, so maybe we could take a short recess and I will see if the Mayor’s team is ready to go forward. Take a short break. 4. Mayor’s Report: Transition Team Report – Eric Cawley Nary: We are ready to reconvene the meeting. De Weerd: Mr. President and Council members I will introduce to you the Chairman in my transition team. I would like to comment that the printed report will be available tomorrow. Last minute edits and hustling around were still happening, probably are still happening, so we will get those into your hands tomorrow. There has been a great deal of time committed from citizens, business owners in our community to this collaborative report. They have talked to hundreds of people in terms of public works, police, fire, economic development, HR, billing and etcetera. So, I guess when you see the document you will see a wealth of knowledge and background offered to you and in this report. Eric Cawley has been the Chairman of our transition team, he worked very diligently and put some structure to something that rarely happens in the State of Idaho, in fact, I think when we were doing searches on transition teams and trying to find models to help assist us in developing this, there were really none found. So, this was created from scratch and we owe a great deal of gratitude to Eric and the transition team for what report you will see tomorrow and Eric will provide you an overview tonight. So, Eric, we have long awaited you. Also has broad shoulders, so you can give him a hard time. Cawley: Madame Mayor, Councilman President Nary and City Council. I wish I could save my first recommendation as the building of the Ten Mile Interchange tonight that would have gotten our meeting started right on time, but fortunately other things precipitated. What I will do is I will go on a little bit about the background on our transition team, how it was put together, the general methodology and philosophy behind it and then I will give you our overall recommendations and then, time permitting, will talk about the summary of the recommendations of each of our transition team units. As you are aware, our Mayor, Tammy de Weerd campaigned on a number of issues. First and foremost among those issues that she championed was greater responsiveness and greater relationships being built between City Hall and the citizens of the City of Meridian. I have been involved in political campaigns and politics for the better part of 14 years and I have learned two primary, I guess you could say, laws of political physics. The first one is that the way a person behaves as a candidate is indicative of how they will behave as an elected official. The second one is that one of the first things that a candidate turned elected official needs to do is to do everything possible to make sure that their vision in their campaign promises are put into effect. Around two o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, November 5, 2003, the Mayor turned to me and asked if I would be willing to help serve on the transition team. It being two o’clock in the morning and me not being very conscious of anything else I said I would love to. De Weerd: We were at Cheryl’s house. There was no pillow talk or anything. Cawley: That is correct. De Weerd: I mean whom else would I talk to at two o’clock in the morning. I thought I had better clarify that. For the media, please note that correction. Cawley: For the record as well. Nary: I am glad we record these meetings. Cawley: So, that’s started quite an adventure. Little did I know what an adventure it would be because one of the first things that I did is I hoped on the internet to try and find some models or some kind of a template that we could use for a transition team, especially for a city our size. Lo and behold, I found absolutely nothing. So, again, working with some other people who were instrumental in the campaign as well as not on the campaign, we started forming a transition team. Before too long, we brought on a total of 38 members on the transition team. Very diverse membership. We are talking everyone from high school students to retirees; small to large business owners; housewives and CEO’s; teachers and parents. Every walk of life you could imagine in Meridian was represented on this transition team. So, we started setting the tone for the transition team and what would happen. Our first official meeting convened on Wednesday, December 3rd. That’s when we met to discuss what a transition team does and we talked about the overall objectives of the transition team as well as each of the individual units. What we devised was that or what we concluded was that the transition team would serve as a bridge for the Mayor. A bridge from articulating her campaign promises and transferring them into a workable action plan for the City. Mind you, that these are just recommendations. It’s been the knowledge and the understanding the transition team members from the outset that anything recommended by the transition team is just that, a recommendation. The City Council, the City at large is under no obligation whatsoever to incorporate in whole or in part any of the recommendations that are put forth by the transition team. Nevertheless, we looked at this as a project and undertaking that could serve as a guidepost as a light for the City under a new administration in how to build this City from here on. The transition team met every two weeks. December 17th, January 7th, January 21st and during that time we listened to presentations regarding economic development, the City of Meridian’s strategic planning process and other reports; the city finance director; the city planning and zoning administrator and others. At the conclusion of a lot of interviews, we started putting together our transition team reports. Hundreds of people were interviewed. Thousands of hours were spent in putting these reports together and the interviews and drafting the reports, fine tuning them and putting them together and the hours continued to add up. Thirty-eight people, as I mentioned from students to senior citizens helped put this report together and I am very proud of it because it goes into a level of detail that is not seen in any transition team documents. As we continued to research we found one or two transition team documents out on the Internet and none of them really come to the degree of specificity or the breadth or the depth that this one does. During the course of our investigations it became clear that three recommendations would surface as potentially the final recommendations of our transition team. In all actuality these indeed became the final or the overview for the overall recommendations of the City of Meridian Mayor’s Transition Team. The number one recommendation of the Mayor’s transition team calls for greater pro-activity in citywide operations. The City of Meridian must seize every available and potential, opportunity to control it’s own destiny. While it’s imperative that the City continue to work with other municipalities and other governmental entities, it must do everything possible to dictate the course of it’s own future according to the wishes of its citizens and the elected officials. We believe that the City can go far in fulfilling this recommendation as it develops a comprehensive economic development plan by redefining the priorities of the Meridian Transportation Task Force. The City must also create and preserve a sustainable ration between commercial and residential growth in order to maintain a tax base for adequate municipal services and to protect our quality of life. Meridian’s ability to continue dictating it’s own future will be further strengthened as it establishes strong process improvement principals and puts them into action in to each and every department in city government. Our second recommendation focuses on two words, which we believe captured, the essence of the Mayor’s campaign: enhanced relationships. Effective government demands well-established and nurtured relationships both within the City limits and outside of them. The most logical catalysts for enhanced relationships begin at the top of city government with you the elected officials. It’s then exemplified by superior customer service delivered by City employees, through businesses, neighborhoods and homes of Meridian residents. It’s our belief that City employees will benefit by greater interaction and recognition from city elected officials and department directors. Businesses will benefit through strengthened relationships as building, planning and zoning processes are streamlined and they are streamlined in such a way that they rival the best, most streamlined planning, zoning departments in the United States of America. It comes when Meridian residents benefiting as the City Council lends a listening ear down to neighborhood and homeowner’s associations in seeking out their advice and recommendations on pertinent matters. Meridian residents will also be winners as the City strengthens relationships with other cities, the county and the State of Idaho. One of the things that we discovered in the course of our investigations is one of the best ways that we can develop relationships not only with our citizenry within the City, but also those who could potentially be moving to Meridian either to live here, to work here or both is to provide them with a thorough and complete amount of information regarding the City of Meridian that’s available day or night. That became the “hub” or the focus of our recommendation number three from our transition team. Heightened utilization of technology. One of the best tools to enhance the responsiveness and the service ability of city government is to improve its use of available technology. Although technology cannot solve all the problems it can go far in making city services available day or night. Reducing the costs and making city government more efficient. The city website based on the best municipal websites in America cannot only deliver information about the City, but it can also be a means to attract new business growth and development within the City and residential home sales. One of the things we discovered and I can go into more detail into this later on is that during the course of our investigation we found that one of the best municipal websites in the United States is right in our own backyard set in Salt Lake City, Utah. On that website it’s very clearly defined, the information on there. The City calendar is right there on the home page and people can go there no matter if they live in the city or they are thinking about living in the City or relocating a business or forming a business there, everything they need – all that information they need is right at their fingertips and not only that, but they can conduct transactions with city hall. City government transactions can be conducted online, thereby minimizing or even negating the need to travel to city hall to conduct your business. Another example of technology helping government work more efficiently is to give your police officers some cell phones. We can go into more detail into this later on in the public safety report, but by doing something as simple as giving your public safety officers cell phones, they can spend more time out in the field instead of having to go back to headquarters to write their reports. That’s the overview of the recommendations. That’s the big picture. The top three recommendations. They are again greater pro activity in citywide operations, enhanced relationships and heightened utilization of technology. I will now go on to the summary of recommendations. As was mentioned we had 38 transition team members. They all did not focus on one area. We had three or four people working in different specialty areas and different departments of city government and they spent their focus, the time on the transition team, spending that focus on their individual departments. The first one that I will discuss is the billing and finance departments. Our transition team is recommending that they explore alternative payment options affording citizens additional and convenient methods of payments. We evaluate the collection methods. Examine auditor’s recommendations and explore utilizing a centralized purchasing agent or system. When you have centralized purchasing it makes it purchasing and acquisitions of city departments just that much more efficient. Also recommended regularly report on revenue sources and explore by-monthly billing cycles. It’s been done by other municipalities here in our area as well as the northwest with great success. In terms of the building department, there were three recommendations – De Weerd: Eric, I am sorry. If you could first also explain the structure of each report, you know the objectives. Cawley: Terrific. No problem, Madame Mayor. Each transition team report as you’ll see in your printed report’s tomorrow they are basically four roman numerals or sub points. It’s organized with four main points. Roman numeral number one is an overview. It gives the objectives of each of those transition team units; what was their mission, what are they looking at? It also gives an issue’s assessment. The issues regarding that particular discipline as well as city governance. In other words, if we are talking about the Finance Department, the Police Department, the Fire Department, Planning & Zoning it lists that department’s vision, mission, staff size and annual budget as well as major challenges. That’s all in the overview section. Roman numeral two in each report talks about benchmarks. One of the things we wanted to steer clear of is personalizing each report. We wanted each report to be factual and objective in its analysis. Therefore, what each transition team unit did is they looked at the benchmarks. What are the top levels of service in that discipline or department considered to be? For instance, what are response times for Fire Departments? What’s the average size of an information technology section in city government? What is the average or what is the best turnaround time for getting a building permit processed in a municipality of our size? So they look at those benchmarks and they list them out. The third area was a needs analysis. In other words, how is the City of Meridian doing in terms of complying with those benchmarks? We know what the benchmarks are, how are we doing in complying with those benchmarks? Are we doing well? Do we deserve some kudos and some attribution there for a job well done? Are meeting them or are there some areas of improvement? Based on that number three that needs analysis we recommendation section – the Roman numeral number four where we would list out a number of recommendations for that city department. That is done on each and every transition team report that’s being issued. Because as I stated, we wanted to be objective in our analysis, focus clearly on the top levels of service within each disciplined or city government department so we would do that. The Billing and Finance Department as I just mentioned is one of those and there were six recommendations there that I mentioned. The Building Department had three recommendations. One was to create a process improvement group, which would provide ongoing positive and meaningful improvement to the processes and functions of city government, in this case the Building Department. The second recommendation was to speed up the building permit process and to improve building permit issuance time. One of the things that our transition team discovered was that there are municipalities in the United States where the building permit issuance time is not measured in weeks, not measured in days, it’s measured in hours. We go into detail in that. Who does it? How do they do it? Can we do it here? The short answer on the third question; yes, we can do it here. The third recommendation of the Building Department was to increase the quality and quantity of employee recognition. One of the things we found pervasive throughout city government was that there was no real unified means of delivering employee recognition. I have to tell you something; you have some awfully good employees. You have quality people working for you. Each and every department we went to without exception we were impressed, we were motivated, we were heartened by who we saw working for the City of Meridian and because of that level of quality we felt they deserved an equal level of quality in terms of their recognition that they should receive from the elected officials and from the department heads. They really, they really deserve it. So, that was one of our recommendations that we made in the Building Department. Just one little example there in the final report, boy those people really deserve that especially in that Building Department. Our next recommendation focused kind of two different aspects. There are no departments, so it was more of an issue. Communication and information services. There are five recommendations in there. The first one was to reorganize the City’s information technology unit into a stand-alone city department. Right now the City’s only IT person is housed or functions within the City’s Finance Department. All the other municipalities in our area, populations and city FTE’s sizes lower than us as well as slightly above us, all of them have a stand-alone IT Department. In fact, they have more than one person servicing nearly 200 employees and municipalities our size, FTE’s our size, usually about two or three people are working on the computers and information technology system. What this report recommends is that the City have two people, at least two people working in the IT Department in the City of Meridian. You have your IT Director, who also serves as your network administrator and they are always looking at the big picture. Then you have an IT Technician, who is putting out the fires. Right now what we have is we have one person in IT who is expected to look at the big picture, yet put out all the fires and because of that, because he is spending most of his time putting out the fires, it’s really limiting his ability from looking and working on the big picture and so what we recommend is to free that up and get us the focus that we need. The other is to make sure that we get that new LAN Server for the City of Meridian. That will give the City more of a unified IT presence and increase the collaboration of city government departments. Another recommendation is to provide external feedback and involvement at City IT operations. One of the things we are recommending is that the City form an IT Committee or Board to provide recommendations and advice in how to improve our information technology efforts and initiatives within the city government. One of the things that I think we will find and we are already getting emails from people who would love to serve on a voluntary committee or board to help advise the City and help it do things. One of the first things that I am finding from these people sending in their emails is that they would like to help build a new City of Meridian website. We are getting people whose experience level in terms of webpage design and building is measured in decades and they are willing to volunteer their time and their efforts to help the City build a new website. That’s the kind of people we have here in the City of Meridian. So, one of the first things for recommendation number three is that as a city collaboratively, that is one of the first words in this recommendation, collaboratively design, deploy and continuously improve the most dynamic city website in the United States. We have the technology. We have the experience. We have the desire. We know what they look like and how they operate. We have all the resources in everything we need up here to be able to build the top municipal website in the United States. We know what it looks like. We know what we can do and that is our recommendation is that we build it and we build it here and we make it the City of Meridian’s. Number four is to enhance city communications. Kudos to the office of Mayor and the elected officials for really enhancing the communications with the City employees. We see the emails coming out of the Mayor’s Office. We see the communication amongst the City Council members and the department heads and we are very impressed. What we found during the course of our investigations and our interviews with the City employees is that they too are appreciative of the heightened awareness and the heightened communication on part of the elected officials. We encourage that to continue. We also encourage the development or at least explore the feasibility of coming up with a quarterly employee newsletter where people can be recognized, new employees can be recognized and people can be strengthened as members of the City of Meridian government employee force. Also, look at some fun things to do with the employees. Have a summer picnic, a summer barbeque. Give people an opportunity to throw a water balloon at a city council member, whatever they would like to do. (Laughter----). Ca wley: Since we are still working on the final tweaks, perhaps I should throw in department heads as well. One of the things we discovered is that we were really impressed with the Mayor’s, I believe it’s the dumbest city rule contest. The employee thought that was really fun. I think if we can continue to inject a little bit more fun in what we do at City Hall and city departments you are going to have employees who are already motivated, really, really soaring through the stratosphere. Recommendation number five was to foster an environment of continuous improvement. Again, we are going back to that overall recommendation of process improvement in every function, in every department of city government. We don’t rest on our (inaudible), we are always looking for a better way to do things. One of the main recommendations that we are putting forth is economic development and jobs. One of the top things that we are recommending is that the City hire an economic development specialist or an economic growth coordinator and one of the things they will be doing is they will be the point person for spearheading the economic growth and development in this City. There are 16 recommendations on here. It will take me three more Council meetings to go over them. I am not going to do that to you. Instead, I am going to encourage you to read the report tomorrow because there are a lot of recommendations, but might I say on there one of the things that we need to do in that is to continue strengthening relationships, not only with existing businesses, we need to strengthen relationships with people who would be relocating or forming businesses in the City of Meridian. We put on a full court press like it’s never been seen before in terms of economic development outreach. With the Fire Department we are recommending enhancing staffing levels and improving response time. Again, as I mentioned, we have looked at the benchmarks, we have looked at who has got good response times and what are they doing and that information is contained in the report. The Human Resources Department and one of the things we are mentioning in there is that we establish uniform orientation and training processes. New employee orientation, so when an employee comes on board they know what’s expected, what the benefit’s package is. What about transferring within departments or going up through the ladder or whatever. For the Mayor’s, City Clerk and City Council. We had 10 recommendations identify and communicate with Meridian’s homeowner’s associations and utilize representatives of the homeowner organizations and regional areas for feedback on other regional issues and concerns. We are encouraging this Mayor and the City Council and the City Clerk to actively support and encourage the development of neighborhood associations throughout the City. To fully utilize the City’s website and enhance citizen participation in boards and commissions. We have got a lot of boards and commissions in the city government, but unfortunately a lot of times they are not filled and possibly one of the reasons for that is we just aren’t getting the information out well enough that hey there is this board, there is this commission out there and here’s why it would benefit you and it would benefit the City as a whole. So, that’s one of our recommendations is to put more of an emphasis on citizen’s boards and commissions. Other recommendations include continuing to cross-train staff and additional staff were (inaudible) to allow the City to adequately serve the growing public and to review the breakout of responsibilities in the City Clerk’s Office regarding planning and zoning issues. In terms of Parks and Recreation and youth, we had seven recommendations and one of the first ones is the form of Mayor’s Youth Council, just not “a” Mayor’s Youth Council, but to again go back to that original methodology of benchmarking. Look at the other municipalities in the United States in our area and find out who’s doing Mayor’s Youth Councils and doing it the right way and let’s make that ours and let’s best it by a notch or two. Let’s integrate and involve the youth now in building tomorrow’s Meridian. We also encourage the Mayor and City Council to aggressively develop parkland and increase the average parkland for the City. To ride and establish clear, concise objectives and job descriptions for Meridian Parks and Rec employees and to establish an enhanced dialogues and partnerships with the Meridian School District. Now as a big recommendation, the City and the Meridian School District should be like this: working on a common goal and common direction. In terms of the Planning and Zoning Department, four recommendations. Create a process review committee, update and improve the zoning ordinances, improve the effectiveness working relationship and trust among the Planning staff and City Council to (inaudible) the Planning and Zoning Commission and to speed up all the processes. Again, we’ve benchmarked these processes. We know how they can be speeded up and where the examples are and we point that out in our report. In terms of the Police Department, I mention one simple little improvement real quick. Get them cell phones, but in addition to that continue to develop a customer service and community-policing plan promoting the mission and the values of the department. When we say Meridian’s finest in this report, we mean it. Because during the course of our investigations again we were highly impressed with the motivation and the professionalism of each and every one of the Police Department employees that we interviewed. They are dedicated to making sure that Meridian remains a peaceful city in which to live, but they need to have the resources in order to continue making that happen. In terms of public involvement, again we mentioned heightening participation and community boards and commissions; continue working into partnerships with media and (inaudible) participation on regional boards and commissions as well. In terms of Public Works, again we found a lot of good things happening in the Public Works Department. The employee job descriptions and organizational flow charts need to be a little bit reexamined and clarified, maybe updated and identify the growth priorities within the City’s Master Plan. Finally in terms of regional partnerships, our last recommendation is that, again, we go back to our original methodology that Meridian needs to control it’s own transportation related destiny. One of the things that we are recommending is that we re-task, re-purpose the Meridian Transportation task force and get it meeting on a more frequent basis. We need to hire or at least examine the feasibility of hiring a City of Meridian Transportation Planner. We control our destiny and how the transportation is conducted around and through the City of Meridian. Need to give clean industries incentives to locate in Meridian, pursue or at least examine the purchase of City vehicles that use clean air fuels and maximize what the City’s water quantity and assure quality utility service exists within the City of Meridian. That’s just the summary of our recommendations that we have in this nearly 100-page report. Again, in summary we have three recommendations: greater pro-activity, enhanced relationships and a heightened utilization of technology. Thirty-eight people, all Meridian residents, all walks of life pretty much came up with these three main recommendations as well. That is our recommendation to the Mayor, our recommendation to City Council. Again as I mentioned, you are under no obligation whatsoever to enact it in whole or in part. We fill that during the course of our investigation and our examination of city government that this will provide the City of Meridian and it’s employees a terrific blue print for how to make and continue making Meridian the best city in the United States to live. I am open for any questions you may have. Nary: Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess just in closing, the three common recommendations are threads that were woven through all of the reports and so that’s why they came to be the top three common denominators in the report itself. It kind of summarizes many of the different recommendations across the board in those reports and as Eric did point out that this is the recommendations of the Committee and doesn’t necessarily reflect those of the Council or the Mayor, but in looking at the areas that they were cast to focus on it is what they feel compelled and convicted to recommend. Also, some of the recommendations are already being focused on and put in place. You will see that, too. I think it’s a great indication that we are all on the same page in the directions that we are going and I am sure you could tell by Eric’s report where his area focus was. It was probably in the technology part. Nary: That IT part was kind of long. De Weerd: I know. You know it does reflect the campaign priorities, not my promises. I don’t make promises, not in those things anyway. But, it is the priorities that were common throughout the whole campaign as well. We have four people sitting up here that many of these recommendations reflect the discussions and many of the issues that rose to the top during the campaign season. So, they remained sensitive to that and Eric I am glad you did comment on the many, many positive comments that we had of our staff of doing a lot with limited resources and having a very well read City that the citizens should be proud of. So, I think you will see a lot of that reflected in this report and it gives us all reason to be very proud of the employees, the programs that we have in place and how maybe we can do a little bit more with the resources that we do have and I believe in talking to some of the directors after they talk to some of these teams, they walked away with some ideas of ways that they can implement into their own departments as well. So, I can’t speak on behalf of the directors, but some of the comments that I have heard back have been very favorable that they started thinking oh (inaudible) I never thought of that. So, it will be an interesting process and Eric I hope you can convey to the transition team and I will as well tomorrow night, but they have done a phenomenal job and to our staff I sure appreciate all the time you spent with the teams and sharing your challenges and your daily operations. You have gained some great supporters and a real educated workforce because they communicated among themselves that we have a large pool of volunteers now that have a good deal of background and I know Eric smiles, it’s once I rope you into it that you are forever a volunteer, but it’s really fun. I met with – I was talking to my husband last night and we are pursuing being a community of promise and talking about our anti-drug coalition and I told him who was sitting at the table and he said well I haven’t heard any of those names. That’s exactly my point. Our citizens are so anxious to be involved and they are becoming involved and that’s very exciting. We need to continue to provide them opportunities to have involvement. So, thank you Eric I appreciate all of your work. Cawley: Thank you. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Eric I would first like to thank you and the Committee for all the time that you have spent and certainly a very thorough report. I have two specific questions, having not read the full report. Are there recommendations for achievable implementation timelines? Secondly, are there also recommendations for some sort of methodology and timeline for reevaluation of these goals? Cawley: The answer to both questions is maybe and yes, in that order. Wardle: Okay. Cawley: With respect, first of all with the timelines. Some teams did incorporate timelines. For instance, you will see in the economic development in Jobs Report that there are timelines. Timeline or a deadline or possible within one year, two years, six months. You will also see that in terms of the information technology section where a website can be built in as little as 30 days or as soon as 30 days in getting that up and running. So, I guess the answer to the first question on timelines is more of a case by case depending on what the team unit recommended. In some cases, they didn’t want to put a timeline on there because they felt it could be restrictive and they thought well let’s see what the City can do and maybe they can come up with a better timeline than what we would give them. In response to the second question in making sure that things continue, pervasive and again as the Mayor mentioned, the common denominator throughout this whole thing is the institution of the process improvement groups to make sure that these improvements continue on an upward course. Again, that’s according the dictates of city government and not the recommendations of the Transition Team, but we believe that integrating, building teams of those citizens making collaborative efforts in these specialties in making sure that some form of a checks and balances with a process improvement group can be one of the best ways that we can assure that we continue an upward climb and improvement in the city government. Nary: Eric, I noticed in your report – in fact, I would also want to say something that Councilman Wardle said is I appreciate both the time you spent as well as all the other members of the Transition Team, but I know you spent a tremendous amount of time and I know that all of us that are up here or that work with the Mayor, I am sure you volunteered the same reason most people do is you didn’t realize you could say no and – (Inaudible discussion) Nary: -- tremendous effort on your part and I appreciate that very much, but you did mention that in your Building Department recommendations was the discussion about employee incentives and I assume that was a city-wide recommendation and not just the Building Department, not that the Building Department doesn’t deserve recognition, but I assume it was for all the employees, not just that one department. Cawley: Mr. President, that’s correct every city single department. Not only that – not only Departmental Recognition, but in terms of units or sections or teams and then department wide and then possibly citywide. One of our things that we discovered was the City of Boise. They have an employee of the year. They have a supervisor of the year where that can be done. In some cases – Nary: -- they have manager of the year, too. Cawley: So, I have heard. So, that’s another potential for the City of Meridian to capitalize upon and make better. Nary: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess to Eric and to our directors I will be taking this report – the directors will receive this report tomorrow, but I will be meeting with each department and their staff after I have had a chance to meet with the different department directors in following up with them, sharing directly to staff members what the report contains and some preliminary discussions that I have had with each director. I will also be doing a follow up with the Transition Team as well. I would like to meet one last time with the Transition Team as a whole. I am sure I will see all of them involved in the City after that point anyway, but I will be meeting with them a month to a month and one half later to follow up and an initial discussions with staff, with the Council on some maybe initial reactions. So, I do want to keep them in the loop and keep all of you and the department directors in the loop so this piece of document is a living document and one that we can utilize to the fullest. Nary: Nothing else? Oh, Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I’d like to express my thanks to you Eric and the 38 volunteers and the City employees and directors. That will just go so far. I think the real thank you will come from this body as we take a look and seriously evaluate your recommendations, take action to implement those recommendations that we can and explain in those situations where we may not feel a necessity to move forward why and hopefully everybody will get a sense that they are being heard and appreciated even though there will be an occasional recommendation, I’m sure that may not get fully implemented, but thank you. Nary: Thank you very much. Cawley: Thank you. Nary: I see Mr. Venneman over there for our next item of discussion. 5. Discussion of Sign Ordinance Issues: Presentation by Joe Venneman Nary: I am sure part of that discussion is going to deal with that purple dinosaur I saw out by the freeway the other day that said “Rent Me”. It didn’t seem like that fit in our sign – our whole sign package. Rountree: He was out standing in the field. Nary: Definitely. Venneman: I’d like to address the Madame Mayor and the City Council members this evening. I wish to thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you an overview of where we have been with the Meridian site code and code in where we are now and then a discussion of some suggested solutions to hopefully improve the enforcement of the sign code specifically. Yes, I guess it would help if I introduced myself. My name is Joe Venneman and I am the full-time code enforcement officer for the City. I began with the City in December 2002 and it has been an interesting time with enforcement issues. To start with I prepared an eye chart that shows the enforcement activity that occurred for the year of 2003. I apologize for the missing title, but as you can clearly see 60 percent of the efforts that went into enforcement last year, specifically had to do with sign enforcement. That was because historically there was no enforcement going on and we had and continued to have a proliferation of signs in the City. We are very aware of that. The other 40 percent as you can tell is split out between the other 13 or 14 categories that I also handle. Those involve mostly – (New tape) Venneman: -- I would say probably 80 percent are self-initiated. Meaning that they do not involve calls from the community, they involve me driving around literally and pulling signs down. That has been the most effective way of (inaudible) about. In 2003, over 1,450 signs were removed. I say over because some days actually difficult to keep track of those that have been removed. Three hundred warnings plus were issued. Most of those – probably 90 percent of those were to businesses and fortunately, not a single citation was required last year because I was able to obtain voluntary compliance. Now, in about a dozen times, frankly that involved some frank discussions with different businesses letting them know that if compliance didn’t happen then there would be a citation issued and what the ramifications of that is. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the City Council’s action back in 2002, whereby you gave me authorization to cite. Even though citations haven’t been occurring, believe you me the threat of being able to take that action has been received as it was intended by the various businesses. This is a chart for 2004, I apologize for it being flipped on the other side, but it shows the same categories of enforcement that I am involved with and it also shows that 56 percent of the total activity involves signs again. There was a slight decrease from 2003 – we will get into a couple of real basic reasons why that was, but it certainly has nothing to do with the fact that we still have a proliferation of signs. In 2004 we – I have had about 390 signs removed to date. That doesn’t include this week's totals. There is 41 pending warnings for signs and two cases that appear to be handed to prosecution if I don’t see some compliance soon. The challenges – I wanted to take this opportunity tonight to briefly review for you the interesting challenges that sometimes the sign code brings to us. It does allow for (inaudible) and other types of temporary signs to exist as long as they go through the proper permit process. Some signs that you are seeing within the community have been properly permitted – the ones, of course, that we go after are the ones that the process hasn’t been followed. The code also contains a temporary sign permit, which frankly has been found to be confusing for a number of businesses and frankly for me as an enforcement difficulty because it requires the business if it’s an annual permit to put up a sign and take it down four different times through a very specific cycle and most businesses have a hard time following that cycle. They, in fact, very few do. So, part of my enforcement challenges to let them know that their 20-day period for display has been up – has expired. They have to wait another sixty days and then they can put it in again. So, that has proven to be one of the challenges that I face as far as temporary signs go. The communities history as we all know prior to certainly my hiring in December 2002, there was little enforcement activity going on and so I knew that going in that there is a learning curve for a tremendous number of citizens and businesses and so, frankly, I see a big part of my job as one of education of trying to let people know without too hard handed of an approach that there is a code out there, it really does apply to them and even though they may have lived here for a number of years, unless that circumstance is grandfathered that they have to comply. So, that history – you know that stuff that we can’t do much about it, but it’s there and it is a reality. Everyday I hear the phrase, well I didn’t know that or I have done it this way for years and so that leads us to a chat about what the code means. (Inaudible) of course is an issue the phenomenal rate – the commercial and private signs continue to appear even on a daily basis in this City astonishes me. I take, literally, two down at one intersection, come back two hours later and there is three in its place. So, that has become an issue, but we do think that we have a solution that we’d like to talk with you a little later with Chief Musser’s help that might address that. Increased referrals – what that means is that in the growing community that we have referrals that are coming into code enforcement are definitely on the increase. I consider that to be a good thing. That’s an excellent trend because it means that the word is getting out that enforcement officers exist and that we are there to help them and so even though that means that it’s spread me a little thin on some days I still think that any increasement referrals is a good trend to see. The prosecution process – I include that primarily because there might be some misperceptions about just how quickly the process can take place. For those of you who are familiar with the citation process, it’s not unusual at all to know four to six months from first citation date to a date in court and a resolution could take much longer than that. Meridian had a pretty well known case I have been told about that lasted three years until it was finally resolved. So, that being what it is and that being a fact too we take enforcement on a voluntary compliant level very seriously. We don’t really want to go that route, I guess, is what I am saying. So, it increases the importance of (inaudible) voluntary compliance from businesses and citizens. The proposed solutions that I would like to bring to your attention tonight, the first of which is that there has been a recent re-organization of code enforcement within the Police Department and that was initiated by my physical relocation there in February. I used to work at the P&Z office. There is two part-time officers and then there is a part-time, part-time officer and they are involved with what I would call non-chapter 11, 12 violations of the ordinances. Primarily that means for them weeds and abandoned vehicles. The good news is that with this re-organization what I am hoping will happen and I think the Chief can address this issue is that I hope to be able to count on the help of those two part-time officers to help enforce non-commercial signs. The proliferation of garage sale signs and special event signs that have to be addressed, but they take me away from what I consider and I think you may agree is the real problem, which is commercial sign proliferation. So, going forward what we hope to have happen is those two part-time officers being assigned in a very regular, routine basis going out and removing those non-commercial signs that are not in compliance. There is a plan underfoot that there might be funding in the new fiscal year for a second full-time code enforcement officer and of course I would welcome that opportunity with open arms because of the vast number of signs that are going up in any given day and perhaps Chief Musser can address that issue with you later. (Inaudible) some other solutions the City of Nampa about one year ago implemented a phenomenally successful, their words not mine, abatement program, whereby they asses an administrative fee that was based on quite a bit of research to businesses that will frankly just simply not remove signs. They remove them and they charge the businesses and last year, I’m told, they took in about $19,000 on just that administrative fee. This is (inaudible) a revenue-producing program, which would be new to code enforcement, but it’s certainly serves as a very practical and useful alternative to go in the prosecution route. I realize that that would take, obviously, City Council approval to get involved in the assessment process, but Nampa Code has offered to come in and speak with you as a group, Madame Chairman, with regard to how their program works, why they implemented it and how and why it is successful. I see one kind of a missing opportunity that I, frankly, haven’t had the time to address, but I would like to and that is the education of the local sign companies. I know for a fact that there are some of those companies in town that know the code, that are producing signs that are in violation with the code and they also are not mentioning the fact that permits are required and while this is a way of nipping some of these problems in the bud, if I can get them to help with this issue and have a discussion with regard to permits when it’s required then some of a lot of the signs that we see won’t even go up. I do realize that that’s a revenue issue and some of them have mentioned that to me that what I really asking them to do is to cut back on the signs that they produce and sell, but in some of the conversations that I’d had, I’ve also tried to appeal to the fact that they have a responsibility to the community to ensure compliance too and I am meeting with some success with that. I mentioned the issue with the temporary sign process earlier and this kind of goes into that again, but suffice it to say that I think what might be useful is a comparison of the temporary sign process that maybe the municipalities are using Boise’s code or perhaps Nampa or one of the other cities to find out if they have, perhaps, a simpler process to use. I think that’s an opportunity. Not to build up Nampa too big of a scale, but they also about a year ago implemented what they call a door knocker program that I am sorry, neglected to bring a copy of that document, but in essence it’s a door hanger and it’s a very, very effective tool that they implemented in some of the harder enforcement areas of Nampa and it’s an educational tool and it explains what the code is. It requires an onsite visit, which (inaudible) allows that is the way to go and they have found that when they use this door knocker they don’t get repeat violations from the business or the citizen. So, that’s well worth their time. Lastly, we might consider the creation of a sign code hotline of some type, which would allow employees to report specific sign problems as they are found. I consider definitely the (inaudible) of the solutions that are being proposed, but there is some possibilities there. Nary: Joe, before you get away from that particular one – wouldn’t part of the problem with having any kind of hotline, though, be like you said some of the signs that are out that people may not like actually are permitted or have a permit. So, what I was thinking and just thinking of something – I don’t know whether it’s a practical one I had, but if there was a way to identify the signs that are legitimately there that have a permit that are authorized to be there whether it’s when you get a permit we issue them a sticker that has to be affixed to the sign so that you can see it as you drive by whether the sticker is on it or not. Whether a other person could see it and know it, it might help educate the public a little bit that this sign is okay, you know. Venneman: Sure. Nary: I am thinking something very elementary. I mean a sticker that said approved because one of the things I think that’s helped educate the public is, for example, the signs that we see for all the different public hearings for Planning and Zoning or Council. Those signs are huge. I don’t think most people now could come here before and say I didn’t know I was supposed to do something because people see those signs. They don’t always read them or they tell me when they talk to me is I can’t read that as I am driving by and I say well you are not supposed to read them as you are driving by you are supposed to know something is there and go read it without while you are driving, but it’s a way to let you know. I was thinking maybe there is someway so that way the folks that are compliant we have a way to note that and so that somebody knows that ones okay and then when you don’t see those acknowledgements that they are okay, then that’s an education tool as well as an enforcement mechanism. Venneman: I agree and what’s interesting in the temporary sign code process we use right now the business is issued a sticker that – much like you referred to and it’s got in here and (inaudible) and it adheres to the sign. The problem that I am encountering is that no one really wants to put that on the outs-ward edges of the sign, they put it on the inward, so it literally requires me or whoever else is going to look at them to get out and do the looking on the inside of this – it’s worth looking into though whether there is some other kind of flag, if you will, that would allow a visual confirmation of whether the sign is legal or not. I would certainly be willing to look into that. I appreciate those comments, Councilman. That pretty much concludes the overview and I would certainly be willing to take any questions or comments that you are going to have regarding this issue. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I am sorry I missed the first part of the presentation, but when you have a sign up that does not have a permit, what is the process that you follow? Venneman: There is a very standardized process that we use that’s been created both for enforcement and simplicity as well as legality and that is that it requires us to treat everyone equally as far as enforcement goes. What that process involves is a confirmation in every case that the allegation is true that the sign is fact illegal. If that’s confirmed then we send – typically I either make a first in person contact onsite with the business, which is the most common route. But, in every case there is first warning letter that goes – and it is a pretty soft-pitched letter “you may not be aware that we have a certain sign code and you are in violation of the following sections:” We give a ten-day waiting period for that. If there has been no response, then we go to a second warning letter and that’s a final warning letter and it states that that’s what it is and it makes the interesting reference to the possibility to a citation. That’s the letter that really has in probably 80 percent of the cases that are solved that letter does it. De Weerd: I guess, Joe, what I would like to see is and of course this is up to Council in looking at changing the ordinance, but I don’t think our Ada County Highway District or ITD has too many repeat violators because when they see it they take it. At ACHD they keep it on site where you can go and pick it up verses ITD where it’s gone and you don’t repeat that offense very often. It doesn’t require a great deal of staff time because if you determine that it is not there with permission, it requires you to write what two letters, phone calls that’s a lot of time for one illegal sign that they are going to push their time limit because they are getting their extra exposure and they are being allowed to do that and then they can do it some where else. That sign continues to be that kind of the nuisance and there is very little penalty for that kind of abuse. Venneman: Sure. De Weerd: So, I kind of like the swift examples that both of our transportation departments have taught us that and if Council would give you direction to pursue looking at options like that I would (inaudible) support it. Nary: Mr. Rountree. I thought we answered all your questions as well. Rountree: You did, but I guess to the Mayor’s point there is some differences between ACHD and ITD’s position and that they own the right of way and there are, at least in ITD’s case in their state statute that says you are in violation if you post a sign within the right of way and I assume the same thing at the County level. So, you know it’s there and then belongs to that entity, whereas a lot of the signs I’m sure that Joe works with are on private property. There is I am assuming that Bill is going to soon tell us that there has got to be a due process piece to this. But, how much due to the process do we have to have and can it be swifter and can it be something as swift and efficient as a sticker on the sign saying this is in violation and if it’s here in two weeks when I come back it’s gone. I don’t know. Venneman: And before Mr. Nichols addresses that, I would like to make the comment that there is a swifter and I didn’t make this clear earlier – there is a swifter enforcement on non-commercial signs, namely garage sale signs because they do come down. No one in the world has enough time to do letters or even phone calls on those, so I would say that the pattern, if you will or the practice of removal even before a notice is given is already pretty much the daily practice with regard to non-commercial. But, I would be interested in Council’s position with regard to commercial. One of the things, you know, having been in law enforcement before that certainly made an impression on me was the need to be consistent where business entities were involved. The last thing I want to do is create any kind of exposure for the City, but I would be interested in any comments that Council has with respect to shortening or doing maybe a quick pull down program with receptive commercial signs. Nichols: Madame Mayor, members of the Council you have to look at what the code requires and the current code says any unlawful sign which has not been removed within 30 days after sign permit revocation or expiration or the appropriate notice to remove and so forth then the City can take it down. So, if the sign didn’t have a permit to start with we’d have to look at that and see whether or not it could be removed immediately. Certainly if it once had a permit the permit would expire and you have to give them 30 days. I did have a question I wanted to ask. With regard to the companies that make the signs, how many of those companies are Meridian companies? Venneman: My estimate – well, my belief is that there is four of them that are physically within the City. Nichols: Madame Mayor, members of the Council we can look at the ordinance, but I think that we might even – those who make commercial signs to sell to the public to post, we could probably make it a requirement that they inform the purchaser of the necessity of obtaining a permit and if they don’t and it’s proven that they didn’t that that becomes an actionable offense. The other route – I mean if it gets to be that big of a problem, you can take them on a civil temporary restraining order permit injunction and I think we could get a judge to say from here on out you are going to tell people that they have to have a permit if you are going to sell them a sign so that they don’t get whipped sod putting signs up and find out they can’t do it and if your reason is it’ll hurt your business because you won’t sell as many signs then that’s not a real good way of doing business anyway. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Just a quick question. In understanding that and you have explained that most of the people that you talk to are compliant in the sense that typically they may have not known. Have we worked on and from looking at the chart, obviously a large percentage of those are commercial entities. I think that’s what we were talking about is the largest problem and we know where those people are because that’s their business. Have we worked on any type of – it just comes to mind as far as an educational campaign or working with the Chamber of Commerce or – has that been focused on at all? Venneman: It’s interesting that you mention that, Councilman because there has been some recent contacts with the Valley Times, the local paper and the editor there has at least informally agreed to run bi-weekly articles that would be public service announcements, you know, in essence. Of course some of those could include the sign code and probably should. I think that would reach at least the citizens in those businesses that read that on occasion. One, probably recent publication or effort we did was in the change that occurred, which you are well aware of to the electronic signs, electronic reader board signs. We sent out a very specific letter to all those companies that own or operate electronic reader signs and putting them on notice that the change had occurred and that we would be doing physical inspections so those kinds of letters, I think, are helpful in (inaudible) too. But, I think you bring up an opportunity there that perhaps maybe we need to do more outreach and getting the word out and what the code calls for. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I think that the work you are doing is very important and in my perception of the business community in Meridian typically those individuals are not outright rule breaking individuals and if they are informed of those of when and how they can do those things, they for the most part attempt to conform. Venneman: I agree totally with that. There is very few businesses or citizens, in my experience in the last 15 months that have knowledge of what the code is and then chooses to ignore it. Wardle: I think that’s correct. Rountree: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Comment for Joe. Thank you for the job you are doing, it’s got to take a special person and you must be the one. If you have been doing it for 15 months you have found your niche. A question about signs, the banner signs that I see frequently draped across buildings on building fronts. Are those within – are those permittable, number one? Are they typically permitted, number two? And number three how many of those do you cite? Venneman: Citations, frankly, Councilman Rountree have been rare, but the threat certainly has been there and for the most part there is very few exceptions in the code, but for the most part banners that are attached to the site of a building are against the code. My biggest challenge, of course, is Fairview, Main and Meridian and just recently we had a business on Main that we came close to citing, but he finally took the banner down. The interesting thing about code enforcement is how quickly the proliferation happens. People see – it’s kind of a copycat thing going on. One business sees a really great looking reader board and then they all have to one and I see a lot of that. I appreciate your comments to and your support. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess on those areas that are county property, we could look at a yellow sign with black letters on it that probably have five banners across a fence, what can you do on that? Does the county have any codes and can you work with the county on some of that? Because they do set standards and I have seen it at other places now too. Venneman: Madame Mayor, that’s an excellent point and (inaudible) Williams is the code enforcement officer and he is kind of a long ranger like me and we talk about every other day now and that’s been going on for two months because of the checker board and development that’s been going on in the City we have to. We are constantly passing referrals to one another. We just talked twice today, in fact and it has to do with this is yours, this is mine type of a chat. Then he lets me know what problems are coming with areas that have recently been annexed, so they knew what the same code history is. I really am – appreciate his help because me as a partner, kind of a partnership-type thing we have going on we are very aware of what each other is doing with regard to signs and he, I think, also is looking at an opportunity for increase sign code enforcement out on the county because of some administrative changes that they are making too. We, like I said there is probably not every other day that doesn’t go by that Mr. Williams and I don’t talk. De Weerd: Mr. Chair, just follow up. What is their policy on those banner signs when there are so many in number? Is it similar to ours and are they enforcing it? Venneman: In the – I did a review about four months ago of Ada County sign code. It is remarkably shorter than ours. It’s only about 11 or 12 pages, but it is comprehensive in it’s coverage and it’s just amazing those subjects come up because just last week, Mr. Williams has been advised by his supervisor to go to a quicker removal policy that he has been following too. It covers banner, it covers (inaudible) signs, it covers the same kinds of issues that I deal with. So, to answer your question their code is similar to ours, not in every respect, but we do agree with respect to banners being illegal. Nary: Joe maybe to get to the end of this it sounds to me like the Council and the Mayor would like to continue to support these options and bringing those forward probably with Mr. Nichols assistants. I think Madame Mayor would like a more street justice type of resolution to some of these signs out there. So, whatever we can do. But also, maybe in looking at some type of mutual assistance agreement with the county at least within the City limits for the County enclaves that are within the City limits that might be an area to explore with the County on whether or not some sort of agreement could be reached between the City and the County to allow you to enforce on those areas within the City for County property so that would assist them in not having to have their enforcement officer have to come out here all the time as well, but allow us to have some consistency and application and all of those things. I don’t know if they are of a mindset to do it, but it might be at least something to explore as well in addition to some ways to quicken the process and again – I mean I think you are exactly right, is that a lot of what can be accomplished is through education, both of the sign companies, providing them support in addition to maybe some ordinance changes, but (inaudible) support. I mean there is nothing that says that we can’t provide the applications that they could have in their facility if they will put them there so that people are informed, as well, that certain signs will need permits – but those types of things. I think we certainly would like to see a continued effort like you have done and something back within a reasonable period of time between yourself and Mr. Nichols and achieve as to how to make some of these things happen. And I meant street justice in a very good, positive law enforcement, legal way. De Weerd: Sure you did. Nary: Council any other questions for Mr. Venneman? I think we have reached the end of the agenda if there is a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Rountree: Second. Nary: It’s been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:07 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / TAMMY DE WEERD, MAYOR DATE APPROVED ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK